Buzzworthy B2B: The Latest News & Trends From August 2021

The Return Of #B2BSMX To Boston

It was an event for the history books: The return of the B2B Sales & Marketing Exchange (#B2BSMX) at the Encore in Boston Harbor. From Aug. 9-11, 500 B2B marketers attended a series of informative sessions to improve their strategies and increase campaign success.

The first day of #B2BSMX featured a series of intimate Workshops, Case Studies and a Keynote that covered everything from leveraging existing partner programs to data hygiene and quality, all with a focus on account-based marketing (ABM), go-to-market (GTM) strategies and the elimination of siloes.

As the sun rose over Boston Harbor on day two, the resurgence of brand marketing and its impact on awareness, marketing and content took center stage. Day two featured Keynotes with experts from MarketingProfs and Corporate Visions, which explored how brain science can help organizations enhance their brand image and create engaging customer-centric content.

Finally, ABM and revenue generation strategies entered the spotlight on day three, as experts from Outreach, Microsoft and Demandbase discussed how marketers are experimenting with ABM and account-based experience (ABX) strategies to drive engagement and harness personalization.

If you missed the event itself, don’t worry — our team has you covered. Register for the FREE Best Of #B2BMX event from Sept. 27-29 and tune into on-demand sessions that feature, well, the best of DGR’s #B2BMX series, which includes #B2BSMX, #B2BMX: Next Level ABM and the #B2BMX Online Experience.

Movers, Shakers & Money Makers

Does something look different here? Oh, yes — DGR is pleased to announce its merger of Movers & Shakers with Money Makers. Check out the latest in happenings in the C-suite and see which companies are raking in the big bucks.

Invado Hires Head Of Demand Generation Strategy To Complement New Service

Invado Solutions, a Pardot and Salesforce solutions consultancy, hired Carlos Hidalgo as its Head of Demand Generation Strategy. This appointment follows the company’s creation of a full-service demand generation solution.

Outreach Welcomes New CMO

Outreach, a sales intelligence and engagement platform, hired Melton Littlepage as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to lead the global marketing strategy, including product, brand, demand gen, communications and technology alliances, to drive growth and extend the company’s category leadership.

Seismic Reaches $3B Valuation; Acquires Enablement Solution

Seismic, a sales enablement platform provider, raised $170 million in a series G funding round, which brought its total valuation to $3 billion. Additionally, it acquired training, coaching and enablement solution Lessonly to help users provide seamless sales experiences from within the Seismic platform.

Nektar.ai Secures $6M In Funding Round

Nektar.ai, a B2B sales productivity platform, secured $6 million in funding, adding to the original $2.15 million it raised in November 2020.

People.ai Raises $100M

People.ai, a revenue operations (RevOps) and intelligence platform, raised $100 million in a series D funding round, bringing the company up to a $1.1 billion valuation.

Invoca Reveals Success Of Strategic Growth Investments

Invoca, a conversational intelligence platform, experienced record growth for the first half of FY21, including 100% expansion of bookings year over year, net customer retention of 110% and NPS score of 86 in February 2021.

Heads Up

Wondering what some of the industry’s biggest innovators have been up to? We have, too! So we gathered the latest news in event technology, sales enablement, lead communication and streaming services. Step aside, Netflix.

Bizzabo & Brightcove Team Up To Provide Video Streaming For Events

Bizzabo, an event software platform, partnered with online video platform Brightcove to provide customers with secure, scalable and reliable video streaming for virtual and hybrid events.

ON24 Increases Capabilities Of Webcast Elite

ON24, a digital experience platform, introduced Hybrid Mode into its Webcast Elite solution to help organizations deliver integrated event experiences for in-person and virtual audiences simultaneously.

Salesforce Debuts B2B Streaming Service

Salesforce’s new streaming service, Salesforce+, will feature live and on-demand content for every role, industry and line of business in one place with original programming from Salesforce Studios as its core content. The offering is slated for a September release.

Influ2 Unveils Account Identification Feature

Influ2, a B2B person-based marketing platform, unveiled Audience Discovery, a new tool designed to uncover target accounts based on a user’s ideal customer profile and add the account to the user’s sales pipeline.

Drift & SalesLoft Partner To Enable Highly Targeted Communication With Leads

Revenue acceleration platform Drift partnered with SalesLoft, a sales engagement provider, to help sales and marketing professionals increase prospect engagement, conversion and alignment through shared visibility into target accounts.

Stand-Out Stats

Who doesn’t want insights into the minds of C-suite executives, buyers and prospects? This month’s findings highlight the latest in data measurement metrics and content preferences, and provides insights in the buyer’s journey.

• 80% of CMOs and CIOs use customer experiences, omnichannel engagement and customer satisfaction as standout KPIs for measuring martech performance, with an additional 60% measuring revenue, customer lifetime value and ROI.
• 47% of CMOs cited SEO content and digital advertising as an effective response to better meet disruptions in the buyer’s journey brought about by new technology, with another 40% claiming this has helped them improve brand awareness in external digital channels.
• When making a purchasing decision, the first three steps B2B buyers take include conducting anonymous research, developing an informal list of vendors and researching preliminary information on cost.
• Buyers prefer a mix of long- and short-form content to influence their decision making in the early stages. High-ranking formats include white papers (57%), E-books (54%), infographics (55%) and blog posts (54%).
• Measurement is a growing priority for 86% of marketers, with 39% noting they believe their system needs improvement.